The Science of Real Problem Solving

The Science of Real Problem Solving

I’m Richard Lloyd Jones and welcome to another episode of Thinking with Somebody Else’s Head. Read the literature about complex problem solving and you’re in for a challenging read. System structure and dynamics, facets of intelligence, positive and negative dependencies. It’s mind-numbing stuff that seeks to concretize often abstract what if scenarios so popular in corporate planning departments or government games theory laboratories.

The nub of the thing is this: you’ve got a goal you want to reach, and a lot of variables in the way of achieving it. What do you need to put in place to transform the state of your current reality into the desired reality?

It’s analytical, logical and quantifiable for flow charts and computer programmers. And its focus on solutions proves that complex problem solving is the territory of those pragmatic Americans, raised as they are on the can-do philosophy of Dale Carnegie and Norman Vincent Peale.